High Selectivity of Hydrogenation Reaction over Co0.15@C/PC Catalyst at Room Temperature.

In the field of catalysis, material scientists pay much attention to tuning the activity and chemoselectivity of metal nanoparticles. Herein, we design and successfully synthesize a series of Co NPs which show high performance on hydrogenation of nitroarenes with both activity and chemoselectivity. Co0.15@C/PC preferentially activates the -C═O bond over -NO2 in water with ammonia borane (AB); however, when the hydrogen source is changes to hydrazine hydrate (HH), the results are the opposite. The Co-based catalyst exhibits exceptionally high catalytic activity (with a TOF value of 10512 h-1, which is approximately 100 times than the akin catalysts) and chemo-selectivity for the hydrogenation of nitro compounds under mild conditions. Additionally, the catalyst can be separated easily by a magnet and shows prominent stabilit, which means that it can be reused for at least 10 cycles.